Cowboy Shebop
by Sarah-neko
Summary: Twenty-five years on, Jet Black is dead, leaving his wife and daughter to mourn him. As Charlie Black explores the ship that is her inheritance, events are set in motion that will shoot her into space.
1. Papa Was a Rolling Stone

**Cowboy Shebop**

**Author's Note:** This is my first shot at _Cowboy Bebop _fanfiction (don't know if it's the first _Bebop_ fanfic with a reference to a Cyndi Lauper song in the title, but that'd be cool). I apologise in advance for any inaccuracies that may be obvious to people who know more about the series than I do - I've seen the full TV series, sub and dub, but it's such a detailed world that there may be things of which I'm ignorant.

I realise writing a 'next gen' sort of story is naff, but _Cowboy Bebop_ went into my head and this is what came out, so please bear with me *^.^* Anyway. It's twenty-five years later.

**I - Papa Was a Rolling Stone**

_I've watched the recording again and again. I don't know if it makes me feel better or worse. It was bad enough seeing his name in the paper, and it wasn't 'Jet Black, twice winner of the Olympus Mons Bonsai Club's annual grand prize, pulled off a hat-trick at this year's show' or anything like that, like when he's been in the paper before 'Jet Black, husband of Meifa, father of Charlie, always loved, never forgotten.' He was only sixty-two. It is not fair. People live much longer than that these days. Sixty-two would be an old man if this was the 1950s or something but this is _now.

_I always watch the recording all the way through, from beginning to end, not skipping to the part meant for me, the part where he says he loves me and I make him proud, and he can't wait to see how I do in my career and he tells me not to worry, no matter where he is he'll be watching_

_Daddy didn't know he was going to die. He made the recording when he turned sixty just in case. He was planning to update it every five years, like if he wanted to say goodbye to any grandchildren. _We_ didn't know he was going to die. He wasn't sick or anything. He stopped smoking before I was born and even though the doctor said he deserved to have lung cancer he didn't. He'd just have a cigar sometimes when he was out in his garden. The other day I made lemonade, and I thought I'd take a glass out to him. He was lying in his hammock with a magazine open, face-down on his chest, sleeping with the cigar in his hand, and it had burned down to a long stick of ash. I thought how silly he was to go to sleep like that, he could get burned or start a fire. And when I shook him to wake him up his skin felt cool, and then I found he wasn't breathing._

_Because it was a sudden death there had to be a post-mortem, and the coroner found that he died of an aneurysm, which is just a random thing that happens sometimes. There isn't even time for it to hurt. Your brain just goes 'phut' and your heart and lungs stop after that. He might even have been napping anyway, just like I thought, with the magazine on his chest like that. It wouldn't have been painful or scary for him. As deaths go, it was a really good death. He was in his garden and it was summer. I'd just graduated; finally had my degree. He was so proud of me going to university. I was applying for jobs; he'd help me look through the Situations Vacant._

_I don't know how to look after Mama. He always did that. She's so quiet since he died. All through his funeral she never looked up or seemed to hear what anyone was saying, even when his friends Bob and Faye talked about how they remembered him. Faye lit a cigarette when she started talking and didn't put it in her mouth once; it was just there in her hand, burning down. She said at the end it was for Daddy. She was there with her daughter Marie. Marie's about my age. In the graveyard she said she envied me, because she didn't know her father. I didn't know what to say back. I thought it was so rude._

_Mama's hired a housekeeper because she wants to keep working. She doesn't expect me to take over everything Daddy used to do. We'll always have enough money. That's because of her business, not because of anything he left in his will. Mama brought money to the marriage and he brought goodwill. He did leave me something unusual, though. The ship he used when he was a bounty hunter. I didn't even realise he still owned it; it was something in a story to me. _Bebop_. Daddy had a funny way with names. Mine was because a week before I was born he had a dream where Charlie Parker lifted me out of an eggshell and gave me to him. Then there're the cats Zwei and Drei. The Bebop has been in dry-dock for years, in storage. Today I'm going to look it over._

Charlie stepped into the hangar and pushed up her sunglasses, sitting them on top of her head. The air in here smelled hot and oily and dusty. _Bebop_ was a looming, lumpy, unfamiliar shape; she knew that was it only because she'd been told where it would be. She pushed her hands into her bomber jacket pockets and looked up at it appraisingly, rising and falling on her toes. _Big and bulky, like Daddy._ A real hunkajunk, the man in charge here had said. It was a refitted fishing trawler capable of space flight. The refit had mostly consisted of a communications system that was state of the art back in the late sixties. Now, well, it would probably work _most_ of the time. If she sold it, it wouldn't be worth much - and how could she sell all that her father had left her? Besides a mammoth collection of jazz records, with a smattering of blues and rock

Jet hadn't been a man with many possessions of his own. Meifa had decorated the house, balancing elegant taste with perfect Feng Shui. He had his clothes, his gardening tools and bonsai trees, the records, and those were about the only things in the house that you would say were his and not the family's common property. He didn't need much to make him happy.

Charlie bit her lip and made up her mind to get on board. Inside, the ship smelled cool and musty. There was a scent oddly like potting mix. Abruptly, she was in her father's potting shed, helping him transfer a tiny pine to a new home; she saw his fingers pressing down the soil around the tree's roots, thick, rough, brown fingers on the right hand, smooth beige plastic ones on the left. She squeezed her eyes shut tightly, willing herself not to start crying again.

She jumped as she heard a faint scuttling noise, somewhere unseen. Of course, there could be rats on board. It would be a good idea to get the exterminators through here. She stopped where she was and waited without moving, breathing very quietly. There it was again, a soft scampering. Something about the quality of the sound made her suspect a very large rat, or maybe a bigger animal, like a stray cat. Or little nails clicking small dog? This was a pretty crappy storage facility if they let whole _dogs_ sneak in. She tried to turn on the light, and found it didn't work. The storage manager had assured her the power was on, so she supposed either a fuse had blown or something had snacked on the wires. She turned on the little flashlight on her keyring and shone it ahead of her; its beam only really provided a pale dot on the wall or floor a few feet ahead of her, but it was comforting. She had had a look at a plan of the ship before she came and had a general idea of where she was going; she wanted to see the living area and kitchen, where most things had happened and where Jet had cooked for Spike and everyone. Charlie's sense of direction was one of her strong points. Whether there were rats or not, there were spiders in here; she felt a shudder of disgust as the first cobweb brushed across her face and kept an arm up in front of it as she proceeded. She started to think horrible thoughts about enormous meaty leggy spiders abseiling down the back of her collar and quickened her pace. It should be just round here yes.

She opened the door and blinked; the lights were on in here with a vengeance, the lamp in the ceiling and a multitude of other lights, blinking and twinkling and shining in her dazzled eyes. She had never seen so much computer junk together in her life. The place was the most appalling mess; it offended her as the daughter of both a good housekeeper and a Feng Shui master. Clutter everywhere, things on top of things, a mad heap of blankets and cushions on the couch that was probably someone's idea of a bed. The energy of the room was chaotic, a stagnant soup of computer and person and dog.

The dog was sitting on the couch scratching behind its ear with a hind foot. It sat up and yipped at her. She only saw the person for a second before he or she sprang up and scuttled off into some hidey-hole, giving her an impression of wild, long, thin arms and legs, spidery and limber.

The dog growled and backed up on the couch, staring at her suspiciously. It was a squat little thing, a corgi, with a video-game control headset perched between its ears. From the look of the white hair that sprinkled its muzzle and ringed its eyes, it was pretty old.

'Who's there?' Charlie called out, trying to make her voice sound sharp and stern rather than spooked. 'Come on out where I can see you!'

Silence, except for the hum and chug of the computers.

'I've got a gun,' she lied. This achieved nothing.

'This is my father's ship!' she snapped. 'You're trespassing on our property!'

A pause. Then, a voice asked 'Father?'

'Yeah. My father. Jet Black. Who'd kick your ass if he was here.'

'Where's Jet!?' The person scrambled out from a jumble of old burnt-out monitors and stared at her eagerly. 'I've been waiting here!'

Charlie stared back. She thought it was a woman she was looking at, guessing from the voice. But her body was androgynous, lanky and boyish, no more breasts or hips than on a sixteen-year-old boy. Her skin was golden brown, her eyes a lighter, feral shade of gold, like a cat's. Her hair was thick, red and spiky, cut shortish and sticking out anyhow.

'J-Jet's dead,' Charlie stammered. 'He died last week. Did you know him?'

The strange woman's face fell. For a moment it looked awfully as if she were about to burst into tears. Then she pulled herself together a little.

'We were friends,' she explained. 'I was Ed.'

'Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Ti - thingummy, the fourth?'

'Did he tell you about Ed?'

'Yeah - often.' Charlie pushed her hands back through her hair, wondering how on earth to talk to her. 'Is - is that Ein, on the couch?'

'That's Ein.'

'I can't believe he's still alive. He must be the world's oldest corgi or something.'

'Data dogs live longer.'

'What dogs?'

'Data dogs. Genetically engineered, special dogs. He's very smart.'

'Daddy never told me about that.'

'Jet didn't know.' The woman scratched the back of her calf with the toes of her other foot and folded her arms behind her head, twisting to one side and the other.

'Uhm Ed I don't know how to ask this are you still like you were back then?'

'No. I grew up.'

'Uhh'

'You're trying to ask in a nice way if I'm still a feral spaz-child, aren't you?' Ed grinned, and her grin broadened as Charlie blushed. 'In bits. Sometimes. When I haven't got a good reason not to be. When I'm not thinking about it.' She became serious again. 'Why did Jet die? Did someone kill him?'

'No he had an aneurysm. He died in his sleep, we think.'

'I thought someone would come back sometime but I guess if Jet's not going to no-one's going to.'

'Miss Ed, do you mean you've been living here for twenty-five years!?'

'Oh, no. More like twenty. In and out, off and on, up and down.'

'Oh my God!'

'It's okay.'

'Daddy thought you left to find your father and live with him. He was always sorry he didn't get to see you again. You should've come to the house!'

'I _did_ find my father,' she said wearily, blowing upwards so that her spiky bangs fluttered. 'And I stuck with him for a few years. But it was going to drive me crazy. My father was never really _attached_ to me. He never remembered me or waited for me when he wanted to move on.'

'That's _awful_,' Charlie said, genuinely shocked. 'You were just a little girl!'

'Oh, come on!' Ed said cheerfully, her face splitting again in a grin. 'I'd been on my own for years. I had lots of fun!'

'Miss Ed'

'Just Ed.'

'Ed, you don't look _old_ enough to be Ed. You should be close to forty by now, shouldn't you?'

'I'm not getting old like normal people,' Ed said. 'I'm not sure why. I think I was a bit different from the beginning. Did your daddy ever tell you about that boy who stopped getting older?'

'Yes,' Charlie said, with a shiver. 'I thought it was so creepy.'

'It must be something like that,' Ed said, shrugging. 'It's not that I don't get any older I just do it real slowly. It's not real interesting. I think I'm, like, thirty-eight.'

'So you live here just you and Ein?'

'And MPU.'

'Mmpoo?'

'MPU is an AI program. He used to be part of a computer satellite. He was the first bounty I caught! But they wouldn't pay me anything for him because he's not alive.' She ran a hand over a screen and it came alive with a squiggly light-show, meaningless to Charlie. 'That's MPU. He's sleeping just now. He's a pretty old computer and he gets tired.'

'Ed why did you wait here all this time? What were you hoping for?'

'To go out bounty-hunting again,' Ed said, a little forlornly. 'I figured I had to go out in the world and find where I belonged. But I didn't belong with my father. He wasn't interested in me, he just wanted me to be okay like you hope all kids will be okay. I belong on the net in my head, but I've got this body that has to live too. I liked it here with everyone. I know Spike died there was a news report about what happened to the Red Dragon syndicate but I thought Faye and Jet might come back I guess I didn't really think.' She looked up, then away as if ashamed of herself. 'I didn't look after myself very well for a while and my mind wasn't always where it should be. It would get lost from my body. MPU and Ein had to put me back together a few times. I would get confused about time. And eating food and stuff.'

'Jeez,' said Charlie faintly. She picked her way through the junk all over the floor to sit down in the armchair opposite the couch. For a moment she wondered if she ought to ask Ed's permission, but thought 'screw it, this is _my_ ship.'

'I can see you're Jet's daughter,' Ed said. 'Cause you're tall like he was, and you've got blue eyes like his.'

'Thank you.' It felt good to think that she could be recognised that way. 'People mostly think I look like Mama otherwise.'

'Well, not _all_ girls like to look like boys so I guess you wouldn't want to take after him _too_ much.' Ed scrambled up on the back of the sofa and perched there grinning at her. 'But me, I like confusing people.' She tipped her head on one side, like an inquisitive cat. 'So what are you going to do with _Bebop_?'

'Not sure, really. I mean, it's okay for you to go on living here, now I know you're here. I guess I'm going to want to go right through it and have a good spring-clean.'

'Jet always said there were parts of the ship even he hadn't explored. One time a new life-form evolved in the spare fridge.'

'Yes, I know that story,' Charlie said wryly. 'I'll just have to carry a flamethrower at all times. Frankly I think there's more likely to be a lot of plain _junk_ than any sinister aliens.' She got up, dusting off the seat of her shorts as she did so. 'Um listen, I have to go now, but I'll be coming back tomorrow with cleaning equipment. I guess I'll see you then.'

'Okay,' said Ed. 'Ein and MPU and I'll be here. See you, cowgirl.'

Charlie parked the car and got out to unload her gear, stopping in surprise when she saw the figure leaning against the chain-link fence of the storage yard.

'Hello,' said Marie, exhaling a cloud of smoke with the words.

'Marie. Hi.' _Have you come to apologise for being so rude at the funeral? And jeez, do you think those are _clothes_?_

'So Daddy left you a spaceship.'

Charlie looked at her blankly. 'Yeah,' she said. 'It was his ship, now it's mine. That's how inheritance works.'

'And once again, everything you could want is handed to you on a silver platter.' She lit a fresh cigarette from the glowing ember of the old one.

'I _beg_ your pardon?'

'I just think it's unfair. What's someone like you going to do with a ship?'

'What the hell do you mean, someone like me?'

'A spoiled little rich girl.'

'I am _not_ spoiled! I - I helped my dad do the housework all the time! I've come to clean the ship out today myself!' She picked up a bottle of disinfectant and brandished it indignantly.

'Relax. You should be happy. The saying goes, "It's better to be envied than pitied".' She shot Charlie a sidelong glance from under her eyelids.

'Yeah, well, I don't pity you. I think you're a rude bitch. So you don't know your father. You would only be worth having sympathy for if you had sympathy for someone who's just lost hers. Now go away before I tell the manager there's a hooker hanging around.'

'How easy it is for a big homely girl to be rude to someone with looks' Marie said vaguely as she sauntered off.

'Get bent, Valentine!' Charlie shouted after her. She turned back to unloading her equipment with stinging eyes.

Ein whimpered and nestled closer to Ed.

'I know, Ein,' she murmured, scratching between his ears soothingly. 'She scares me too.'

'Please do not let her damage any of my peripherals or storage media,' said the lugubrious voice of MPU. 'My artworks are of great value to me.'

'I'll keep you both safe,' Ed promised.

There was a clattering crash from somewhere in the ship, followed by a startled silence. Then Charlie's voice came over the intercom: 'Nobody worry! I'm okay!'

A few minutes later she came bustling in, her overalls lavishly decorated with dust and grease and the bandanna covering her hair askew. 'I found a big box of old pictures of Daddy's! I'll have to look through them later.' She dumped the box down on the couch, raising a fresh cloud of dust. 'Oh, this is so much fun!'

'You think cleaning's fun?' Ed murmured, mildly unnerved.

'Oh yes! Daddy and I always made it a game, and sang together - I'm singing away by myself while I'm working, and it feels like he's right with me. Housework always makes me feel good. Freshening up the place! Making everything clean and comfortable and cheerful!' She clapped her hands together and rubbed them keenly.

'You can't bring order to chaos you know,' Ed muttered, bending over her laptop.

'No, but you can create balance,' Charlie said happily. 'And the physical exertion is very good for you, and it takes your mind right off any worries you might have. Folks, here's a story 'bout Minnie the Moocher - she was a low-down hoo-oochie-coocher.' She strode off singing lustily.

After she was gone, the door slid open. Ed looked up, ready to bolt, but paused as the girl who put her head through said inquiringly, 'Charlie?'

'Charlie's cleaning,' Ed said. She turned up the intercom volume a little. 'Hear that?' Charlie was clearly audible in hi-fi hi-de-hi.

'Oh. She would.' Marie stepped through and looked around with her hands on her hips. Ed regarded her with her head tipped on one side, then rolled over on her back and gazed at her upside down. Marie returned her gaze with a sarcastically raised eyebrow.

'You're like Faye-Faye,' Ed said.

'Faye Valentine is my mother. And you're - oh God. You're Ed, aren't you? This ship's a time-warp.' She strode over and tweaked at Ed's hair, poked at her face. 'Or are you an android? Should I call the Blade Runners?'

'Ed is Ed!' she replied indignantly, and snapped at the poking finger with her teeth.

'Ain't that the truth,' Marie said, drawing back with a heavy sigh. She stood and listened to the faint sound of Charlie thumping about and singing.

'Minnie had a dream about the King of Sweden; he gave her things that she-he was needin'. He gave her a home built of gold and stee-yel, a diamond car with-a plat'num wheels.'

'Maybe I should haul ass to Sweden,' Marie said. 'Except I bet it's a hole like the rest of Earth.' She glanced down at the box of photos and picked up the one lying on top, a Polaroid print. A scribble on the white section at the bottom seemed to say 'Me & Spike 1st bounty.' Two men grinned and gave the thumbs-up from either side of a very disgruntled-looking old woman in handcuffs.

'This is Spike?' Marie asked, holding the photo so Ed could see it and tapping on it. 'The guy with all the hair?'

Ed spared it a glance. 'Yeah,' she said, and put her goggles on, effectively cutting herself off from the outside world.

Marie dropped the photo back in the box and began to go through the others. They were neatly arranged between labelled dividers; she pulled them out and stuck them back in at random. In some Jet was clearly quite young, judging by the amount of hair, although it looked as if that had gone early anyway. Jotted at the bottom of each picture was a little aide-memoire as to why it had been taken. 'Alisa - Beach. First summer together, my favourite swimsuit.' 'Fad's Great Black Eye. Apparently we should see the other guy.' 'Ed wanted her picture taken in this dress. With dog on head!' 'Strangest position I have ever found Spike asleep in.' 'Alisa - Casino. My lucky charm.' 'Faye getting in way of sunset.' Some pictures seemed to be professional, too, a record of contacts and acquaintances. Marie looked these over with mild interest, but what always got her attention was any picture in which her mother appeared. 'Faye w/sorry sonofabitch lawyer.' 'Ed drawing on sunbathing Faye's legs.' 'Captured Faye "Romany" Valentine. V. annoying.'

'They handcuffed her to the _toilet_?' Marie murmured. 'Jeez.'

'Mummy-man Spike Again.' 'Ein w/too many damn Mushrooms.' 'Alisa sleeping.' 'Faye blocking view of beach.' 'Fishing trip w/Bob.'

'Who knew he took photos of every damn' thing that happened to him,' Marie muttered.

'Excuse me,' said a sharp voice behind her. Charlie was there, with a black smear of grime and a ruddy blush of anger on her cheek. 'I don't remember giving you permission to come on board, let alone to rummage through my father's personal things.'

Silently, Marie held up a photo of Faye.

'That might give your mother rummage rights but not you.' Charlie snatched the photo away, stuck it in the box and grabbed it to her chest. 'Go away!'

'I have as much right to be here as Ed does.'

'Yeah, but the difference is I _like_ Ed. Go on. Go away!'

'Make me,' said Marie insolently, leaning back in her chair and crossing her legs.

Forty-five seconds later she landed painfully on her backside on the concrete floor of the hangar.

'And stay out!' Charlie snapped.

'You are _freakishly_ strong,' Marie muttered, pulling herself to her feet and dusting off the back of her miniskirt. 'Not to mention a violent lunatic.'

'Nope,' said Charlie, dusting off her hands. 'Just a girl whose daddy taught her to take care of herself. He didn't want anybody taking advantage of me.'

'Will you stop throwing your father who art in heaven in my _face_?'

'Then stop coming here and hanging around!'

'I've got nowhere else to go!'

'Go _home_!'

_'Faye threw me out!'_

Charlie stared at Marie's flushed face, at the tears that had sprung into her eyes.

'Well... why would she do that?' she asked, feeling a little foolish.

'We can't stand each other. She says I'm a lazy little slut. And she, she's a bitter old cow. She just resents me because I'm young and I've got potential! She won't tell me anything! And I'm sick of being part of her grifting schemes!'

'Um you can stay here, I guess'

'Don't you dare pity me!' Marie scrubbed at her eyes angrily with her shirt-tail.

'I don't,' Charlie said. 'It's just decency. Our parents were friends and you're in trouble. It's what you do.'

'Okay, then,' Marie said, as if conferring a favour. Charlie rolled her eyes.

'And if you're going to move in, you can help me clean the place up,' she said. 'I've got a spare pair of rubber gloves, and there's a bathroom with your name on it.'

'Oh, gross.'

'I mean, _literally_. I could write your name with my finger in the mould on the mirror. C'mon!'

Charlie came home feeling both tired and invigorated. Since she wanted to put the buckets away in the potting shed, she went round the back to the alley between houses and let herself in at the garden gate; having dealt with the buckets she slipped into the house through the french doors. Meifa must be at home if the house was all unlocked; as she stood in the sunroom taking off her sneakers, she could hear her voice in the sitting-room, so maybe she had a guest - or was just talking to the cats again.

Meifa's voice rose high and clear. 'You have no right to say these things to me. In my house! Barely a week after my husband's funeral!'

_What? _

A man's voice replied, but he spoke in a low rumble that Charlie couldn't make out. Curious and alarmed, she peered round the sunroom door into the dining-room, and found that the communicating door to the sitting-room was safely closed. She crept through quietly and, taking a glass from the cabinet that held the good crystal, set it to the door and put her ear to the bottom.

Meifa spoke again, and since she really didn't need a glass to hear her it made Charlie recoil a little.

'I don't care. Do you really think he was in control of me? My refusal to work for a syndicate was not his decision. I saw my father's life destroyed by you people. It's true that one reason why I loved Jet was that he was too honourable and decent and _sensible_ to get involved in any such racket. But you can't walk in here before he's cold in the ground and try to corrupt me as if I were some weak-minded little woman!'

A pause; then the man spoke again, and this time she could distinguish the words.

'Madam Pao, maybe you don't understand.'

'Stop calling me that. My name is Black.'

'The Black Dog is dead. Why don't you embrace your new freedom, as many modern widows learn to do? Full mourning is a thing of the past.'

'You are the most tasteless man I've ever met. Will you please leave?'

'Madam Pao, you could live in comfort for the rest of your life. Never have to worry about your daughter's future.'

'I _don't_ worry about my daughter's future. And my business is doing just fine. You can't offer me anything I can't get honestly.'

'Perhaps not, Madam Pao but we can take things away.'

There was a hot, shocked pause. Charlie felt her face turn red as her heart started to beat faster, and bit her lip.

'Your business your daughter's future?' The man spoke slowly, languidly.

'Don't you dare threaten my daughter.'

'Why, we don't have to harm her physically. Not at all..But supposing her academic transcript showed some things it didn't before? Some 'incompletes' or 'fails'? Suppose she was not, how shall I say, attractive to employers? Suppose she was pestered by the police? Or less savoury people.'

'The equivalent of writing up her phone number in a truck-stop restroom,' Meifa said with a bitter laugh. 'Do you think we don't keep protected copies of all our personal information?'

'Only ask yourself, Madam Pao, which will be believed? The one copy you keep at home, or all the records pertaining to your daughter, everywhere, which will be in agreement?'

'We still have friends. Friends who'll believe us.'

'You can't hide behind your husband's old boys' network forever. Be reasonable, Madam Pao. We are reasonable too - we'll give you time to think it over. But not long.' There was a soft scraping sound as he rose from his chair; Charlie heard her mother get up too, walking him hastily, angrily to the door.

Slowly, she lowered the glass and stood looking at it in her hand. A smudge of grease from her cheek, still covered in Bebop dirt, was imprinted on its bottom. Still moving slowly, she carried it to the kitchen and put it in the dishwasher, then remembered that crystal had to be washed by hand, removed it and filled the sink. Her hands began to shake as the water ran, and she dropped the glass. It smashed against the stainless steel. Meifa hurried in at the sound.

'Charlie? Charlie darling, I didn't know you were home.'

'I've - I've been home for a few minutes now. I heard you talking.'

'Oh, my dear girl I'm sorry' Meifa put her arms around her and rested her head on her shoulder; it was the highest she could reach.

'You can't do it, Mama, you just can't work for a syndicate! They're terrible people Daddy wouldn't' To her shock, she was starting to cry.

'I know he wouldn't. And I wouldn't either. Don't be afraid, darling Charlie. We'll work something out. For one thing, I'll call Bob and tell him we've been approached and threatened.'

'They'll find out, though, won't they? If they can do things like ruin your business and take away my degree'

'They can't, Charlie, truly they can't. I'm sure they can't.'

'I want Daddy!'

'Charlie!' Meifa spoke almost sharply. 'You're a young woman now. At a time like this you have to behave like it. I need you to be strong. We both have to make Daddy proud of us.'

'I'll I'll try.' She pulled up the front of her teeshirt and wiped her eyes. 'I'm sorry, Mama, I broke a glass.'

'It's all right. One of that set was broken anyway. Now we've got an even number again.' Meifa rubbed Charlie's back with one hand as she leaned over to pull the plug and let out the water. Charlie watched the broken shards of crystal gather in the plughole; she felt as shattered as they were.

**To Be Continued...**


	2. Charlie Get Your Gun

**II - Charlie Get Your Gun**

Charlie broke the connection and sighed with relief. The first thing she had done this morning - in her panic yesterday, it hadn't occurred to her yet - was to call the university, speak to her dean, and ask that a backup be made of her records and stored independently. She was having to pay a fee for it, but it felt like a good safety measure. The dean had seemed puzzled, but remembering Charlie well and having always rather liked her, she'd been ready to help.

_Go on and try to take my degree away now, you bunch of spivs, _she thought, and went into her room to straighten the framed diploma hanging on the wall. Her next step was to start browsing the situations vacant; now more than ever it felt important to find a good job. She found a couple of ads that sounded promising and started composing cover letters to send with her resumé. While she was writing perkily and enthusiastically about how suitable she was to work for Phoenix Insurance, she heard a knock at the door, and reflexively got up and came out of her room. Meifa was answering the door; Charlie knew from her unhappy intake of breath that the dapper man standing on the doorstep was the same visitor from yesterday.

'Clearly, you weren't joking about not giving me much time,' Meifa said coolly.

'You're a good businesswoman, Madam Pao; we know you're capable of making quick decisions,' he said, with a smile. Charlie stood behind Meifa sizing him up, so she would know exactly what kind of man to hate. He was a little taller than her and had a healthy, gym-every-day build. His clothes were light and crisp, linen, the sort of suit worn by a gentleman from a temperate climate in the tropics; she noticed that his nails were manicured, short and smooth and enamelled a red so dark it was almost black. He might be any age between twenty-five and thirty-five. His hair was a very light yellowy red and he had the unfortunate overly pink complexion that goes with that colour, but his features were smooth and even and handsome. He had two scars through his right eyebrow; she wasn't sure about the colour of his eyes because he was wearing small oval sunglasses with dark red lenses. As she glared at him, he glanced up from Meifa's face and noticed Charlie standing in the hall.

'Ah, your lovely daughter,' he said, smiling. 'Congratulations on your degree, Miss Black. First class honours are quite an achievement.'

'Leave us alone,' she said, folding her arms and setting her feet apart. To her astonishment and outrage, he gave an appreciative glance to her breasts, pushed up slightly by her folded arms, before returning his attention to her mother.

'What is your answer, Madam Pao?'

'No. Never. Find someone else.'

'We want the best.'

'I wouldn't be so conceited as to proclaim myself the best.'

'One last chance.'

'No.'

'Then it begins now.'

'You can't threaten us,' Charlie started to say, stepping forward. His hand moved. She experienced the next few moments in tortured slow motion, everything perfectly clear before her eyes and herself entirely unable to react. He took a gun from inside his jacket, calmly pointed it at Meifa and shot her. She seemed to leap backwards, hitting the wall behind her with her shoulders and then sliding down to sit slumped on the floor. There was a red rose blooming on the white sleeve of her blouse. He put his gun away.

'Mama,' Charlie gasped, dropping to her knees beside her, pressing her hand frantically to her arm. Meifa raised her head and stared at the man, her face white with blue shadows under her eyes.

'You said - you said my business'

'Knowing perfectly well that if you intended to refuse, you would use your thinking time to protect your investments and create concealed copies of your documentation. We are not fools, Madam Pao. We could find those too, eventually. And we are not interested in threatening you idly. You have another day, if you wish, to reconsider. You may change your answer right now and I'll take you to our private hospital. A benefit for employees. If you take today and say no again tomorrow, something else will happen.' While he was talking, Charlie had stripped off her teeshirt and bound it around Meifa's bleeding arm; she had smudges of blood on her face and hands.

'Stop looking at my daughter like that,' Meifa said, faintly but fiercely.

'That's a very cute bra,' he said mildly. 'I love roses.'

Charlie clapped her hand over the ribbon rose between the cups. _I can't believe I'm getting sexually harrassed at a time like this._

'I'm sorry to do this to you, Madam Pao,' he said. 'You seem like a very nice woman. Please reconsider. No? Well, think it over at the hospital. I'll see you tomorrow.' He turned and pattered briskly down the front stairs, then got into a long, low, white car that was waiting at the kerb. It pulled away with an expensive purr.

'How can they do that?' Charlie mumbled. 'How can they do that?'

'They're not afraid,' Meifa said, leaning back against the wall and breathing deeply. 'They know we have friends in the ISSP and they're still not afraid. Charlie darling, can you call the ambulance?'

'I'll do it right now,' Charlie promised, scrambling to her feet.

A few hours later, she got home from the hospital, closed the door and leaned against it, letting her breath out slowly and drawing her hands down over her face. Meifa was staying overnight for observation; she had a broken arm and the doctor thought she was a little concussed.

'Did she hit her head against the wall?' he'd asked Charlie.

'I don't know. She could have. I didn't see. Mama, did you bang your head?'

'I honestly can't remember,' Meifa said. She looked tiny and pale and folded in on herself. 'May I have a rest? I think I could remember if I could just have a rest.'

'That's the best thing you can have right now,' the doctor said kindly. 'Relax, Mrs Black. You'll have the full protection of the police.' He patted her hand, and turned to Charlie. 'Are you sure you weren't hurt at all in the attack?'

'Positive,' Charlie said, pulling her bomber jacket closed, embarrassed. She hadn't thought of putting anything on over her bloodstained bra until the ambulance arrived, and then she had just grabbed her jacket from the coathooks in the hall. The doctor was young and good-looking, and he had been totally nice, but just now she didn't want any men looking at her half naked.

'Okay. The best thing to do now is just to go home and rest. The police will keep an eye on your house.'

She heard the engine of a police cruiser as it slid past in the street and blinked at the wall in front of her, stained with her mother's blood.

'First thing,' she said quietly, 'clean up in here.'

She was still scrubbing the floor when there was a soft tap at the door. Apprehensively, she opened it. Ed and Marie were there, Ed lugging Ein in her arms and balancing a laptop computer on her head. Marie appeared to be hoping that if she acted nonchalant enough it wouldn't look like she was with them.

'Hi,' said Ed, looking awed. 'I decided to read the news today and you were in it. Are you okay? It only said your mother had been taken to hospital.'

'Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine, and Mama's going to get better. It was just her arm.'

'We came over to see if we could help,' Ed explained.

'Oh, _thank_ you, Ed.' She felt tears come into her eyes again.

'You really ought to put a top on if you're going to stand out here on the step,' Marie pointed out.

'Oh!' Charlie blushed and backed into the house. 'Come on in.'

'Your house is really nice,' Ed said, looking around in the hall. She reached up to touch a hanging wind-chime.

'Here,' said Marie, gruffly, taking the scrubbing brush from Charlie's hand. 'Go and have a wash and put something on, and I'll finish cleaning up the mess.' She saw Charlie hesitate. 'Hey, take advantage of this limited offer. I'm only helpful the same day your mother gets shot.'

'Thank you, Marie.' Charlie made her way to the bathroom, feeling weaker and shakier than ever. Having washed and put her bra to soak in cold water, she went to her parents' room, not her own, and opened her father's side of the wardrobe. Mama was planning to pack up his clothes and give them to appropriate people when they had calmed down a bit. She took out a teeshirt with a silhouette of a jazz trumpet player on the chest - in fact, she had screen-printed that at school when she was twelve - and put it on. It was four times too big for her and made her feel a little better. She went to look for the others and found them in the kitchen, Marie making tea and Ed sitting on the counter, wearing her goggles and communing with the laptop. Ein had laid himself down in the middle of the floor and gone to sleep. She accepted a cup of milky, well-sugared tea from Marie with a murmured 'thank you' and stood leaning against the fridge, gazing at the lettering that spelled out 'Tomato' on Ed's computer.

'Okay, okay okay!' Ed said, pushing back her goggles triumphantly and spinning round the laptop to show them the screen. 'Ed found the police report with your statement. They think this is him, are they right?' A personal profile was showing, with a large, clear mugshot of the man who had shot Meifa.

'Yes,' said Charlie, and took a hasty sip of her tea.

'Rainier Bandaa,' Marie read from the screen. 'Age twenty-eight. He's with the Red Dragon.'

'I can't believe there's still a Red Dragon,' Ed commented. 'Spike would be pissed.'

'You weren't even around when he went down, were you?' Marie asked.

'I read the news back then too,' Ed said haughtily.

'You've missed a bit in between,' Charlie said wearily. 'The Red Dragon syndicate of today is no relation to the one from back then. They've just taken up the name because there's no-one to stop them and, well, it sounds cool. I heard Daddy talk about it with Bob once.'

'So they're not grody old Chinese guys?' Marie asked.

'I don't know anything else about them,' Charlie admitted. 'Except they want Mama to be their Feng Shui consultant, so I guess they have some respect for Chinese culture.'

'Or they're just superstitious,' Marie said. 'I don't believe in it myself.'

'How about you just don't tell me that right now?' Charlie suggested.

'Seven million woolongs,' Ed said.

'What?'

'Seven million woolongs is his bounty,' she said patiently. 'You guys want seven million woolongs?'

'We're not bounty hunters,' Marie said. 'It isn't hereditary.'

'You've got a gun,' Ed said, as if she'd thought this settled it.

'Well, yeah.'

'What are _you_ doing with a gun?' Charlie asked in a rather accusing tone.

'I took it when I left home. I'm not going out in the world by myself with no gun! I suppose _you've_ never even touched one.'

'I have, actually. Daddy always said, he didn't want to think his little girl would ever need to use a gun, but he knew he couldn't control how my life would turn out and he wanted me to know how to use one properly.'

'Yeah? Got one of your own?'

'No but his gun is still in the house. In separate pieces, of course. But I know how to assemble it.'

_'My_ gun,' said Marie, pulling it out of her coat pocket with a flourish, 'is a Glock 30.'

'Daddy's is a Walther P99.'

'I think it's your gun now, honey.'

'He didn't leave it to me.'

'But he'd want you to have it now. To protect yourself.'

'A gun doesn't protect you,' Charlie said, shaking her head. 'It's a weapon, not a shield.'

'Okay, to _defend_ yourself. You wanna bicker over semantics all day, or you wanna get the damn' gun?'

'Okay,' Ed said, 'two guns and a ship and the Tomato - we could do it.'

'I am not going out_ looking _for that man,' Charlie said with a shudder. 'Let the police catch him.'

'If the police could catch him, you think there'd be a bounty on him?' Marie asked scornfully.

'And do you think we're in any state to go after it ourselves? We're _not_ bounty hunters! We're three girls and a dog! Only Ed and Ein have got any experience and that's on the tech side, not capture! Rainier Bandaa is a _gangster._ He knows what he's doing.'

'I may not be a bounty hunter, but I've been a grifter and a gambler since I grew boobs,' Marie replied. 'There's a lot of overlap in the job skills.'

'Okay, _you_ do it. Enjoy your seven million woolongs.'

'Woolong so long how long you gonna be gone' Ed sang vaguely, nibbling at some parsley she'd pulled from the kitchen windowbox.

'You have to be licensed or the police won't pay you,' Marie pointed out. 'But your dad was licensed, and he still is if he didn't cancel it. And you can get his licence transferred into your name, as his next of kin.'

'I can do that easy,' said Ed, flexing her fingers.

'Only one of us needs a licence,' Marie said, 'and we can split the money three ways.'

'This is crazy,' Charlie said. 'You're talking as if it is actually possible for us to catch a bounty. A seven million woolong bounty _that shot my mother.'_

'Guys,' said Ed.

'What?'

'This is an omen. I found it when I was looking up the bounty hunters' licensing authority.' She showed them the screen, displaying a streaming video broadcast.

'_Big Shot: the Next Generation_?' Charlie read out, incredulously.

'Oh, for God's sake,' said Marie. 'Listen to the hee-haw music.'

'AMIGO!'

'Spank me pink, I think they found one of the original hosts.'

'We're here to hand over the reins of _Big Shot!_ Sadly, Judy couldn't be here today - she's launching her signature cosmetics line and we all wish her luck. But here're Bill and Ben to tell you all what the hottest bounties are today!'

'Thanks old-timer! Happy trails!'

'Which one's Bill and which one's Ben?'

'How does Ben's jacket stay on?'

'Ssh!'

'Our first big bounty looks like a real ladykiller, and he killed a lady today!'

Charlie gave a little scream as Rainier Bandaa's face flashed on the screen. Her teacup fell to the floor and broke in two, scattering sugary dregs.

'After a hit on a Feng Shui expert who refused to work for the syndicate, the bounty on gangster Rainier Bandaa has been raised to ten million woolongs!'

'With all the folks that'll get after him, Rainier won't be looking at the world through rose-coloured glasses n'more!'

Marie stared into Charlie's eyes and mouthed 'Ten Million.'

'A hit!?' Charlie screamed. 'Mama!' She grabbed the phone and dialled the hospital with shaking hands.

'Hello, Deimos Health, reception.'

'My mama! Is my mama all right? They just said on the TV it was a hit!'

'Dear, slow down, tell me your mama's name.'

'Meifa Black.'

'I don't have a Meifa Black in my computer.'

'She might be under Pao Meifa.'

'Yes, here she is. Should her name on file be updated? When patients return, we just add an entry to the existing file'

'Listen, please, is Mama all right?'

'She's fine, dear, I have her right on screen and she's just sleeping. A nurse checked her five minutes ago and the notes say there's nothing wrong.'

'Oh God oh God.' Charlie's legs gave out and she sank down to sit on the floor, still clutching the phone. 'Can I please talk to her doctor?'

'I'll try and find him for you.' She had to wait on hold for a couple of minutes, but then there was a bleep and the doctor came on. He remembered her name; she was grateful for that.

'Hello, Charlie? Are you all right?'

'I'm fine, but what's it doing saying on the TV that Rainier Bandaa killed Mama today!?'

'Okay, Charlie, I'm sorry, someone was supposed to call you, there must have been an error in communications. The police have decided to say publicly that your mother was killed, so hopefully the syndicate will think they've lost that lead and leave you both alone. The idea is to get you into some kind of witness protection program, I think. New identities and all.'

'Who decided without asking me?' Charlie demanded.

'I don't know. I'm sorry, it sounds all screwed up. You'll have to talk to the ISSP to try to clear it up. Is there anything I can do to help?'

'I I don't think so.'

'Look, I'm sending you my pager number. Is it onscreen now? Good. You page me if there's anything you need. And don't worry about your mother, okay? She's fine. She can go home tomorrow.'

'Thank you thank you, doctor.'

'You're welcome. Take care, now.' He hung up.

'Well, _that's_ weird,' said Marie.

'God' said Charlie, slowly hanging up the phone.

'Charlie?' Ed said, her voice rising nervously.

'What?'

'I heard him say witness protection program I got a thought and checked it you're not on any records any more.'

'You're joking.' Charlie's heart gave a cold, hard slam.

'No records. There's no Charlie Black any more in any computers.'

'T-try under Pao. Maybe I'm under Pao like Mama. It's her maiden name.'

'No. I checked.'

'They can't do that!' She staggered to her feet and wrenched the computer round, staring at the screen. Ed gently but firmly took it back.

'And I can't find anything connected that would be your new identity,' she went on, frowning as she searched. 'They've just done a wipe on you.'

'They can't!'

'Well, all your _paper_ records still exist,' Ed said. 'Birth certificate, stuff like that.'

'I've got no paper records! There was a fire at the office where they were! They told us it didn't matter because they were phasing out paper!'

'Oh wow,' said Ed quietly.

'What!?'

'I checked somewhere I didn't check before you've got a death certificate.'

Charlie stumbled backwards until she bumped into the fridge. 'No,' she said. 'I'm not dead. Mama's not dead.'

'It's a total wipe job,' Ed said, sounding awed. 'And to get into all these records it's either official access or a really good hacker. Maybe with a nasty sense of humour, since he did the death certificate. And no professional pride,' she went on, sounding annoyed. 'He's just pandering to the paranoid propaganda that's been around practically since the 'net was _invented_. Erasing someone's identity. That is _sooo_ stereotyped.'

'Charlie' Marie said.

'What?'

'I don't think you've got a choice any more.' Her eyes were serious, not mocking.

'But - but' A small bit of logical thought made its way through. 'It won't work anyway. I can't use Daddy's licence if I'm dead.'

'Bureaucracy's your friend,' Ed said. She was serious too, much more articulate than usual. 'The bounty hunter licensing authority has to be separately notified of your father's death to cancel his licence. And I just checked and it looks like no-one thought of telling them. I guess everyone assumed he cancelled it long ago. As far as they're concerned, there's still a Jet Black. That can be you if you want to do it.'

'Oh' Charlie covered her eyes with her hands and tried to breathe deeply.

'And I can work on rebuilding your record,' Ed said. 'There may be backups somewhere that their hacker didn't find. Or the official guy. Whichever.'

'Did the ISSP do this to me, or the syndicate?'

'Can't tell. Yet.'

'I guess I guess I've got no choice. Oh, it's all moving way too fast!'

'Okay then,' said Marie. 'Pack a bag and get that damn' gun.'

Charlie felt a cold, wet pressure against her shin, like a small piece of defrosting liver being pressed lovingly against her. She looked down and found Ein looking up at her, pressing his nose to her leg. He whined softly; encouragingly, she thought.

**Author's Note:** Should you want to see what Charlie looks like, there's a wonderful piece of fanart (I love it so much when my fanfic spawns fanart) at http://www.big-big-truck.com/sketch/charlie.jpg. Thank you so much, EK! In response to the comments so far posted in reviews:

- Concern that the new crew may be too much like the old crew. Well, apart from the fact that Ed'n'Ein are still Ed'n'Ein, the similarities between Charlie and Marie and their _Bebop_ parents are deliberate. Charlie is her daddy's girl and Marie has been living in her mother's shadow. Establishing their own, adult identities (despite the irony of Charlie using Jet's licence) will be something they do over the course of the story. _Cowboy Bebop_ is (to me) largely about finding a new way to relate to the world as old models become obsolete or are twisted by circumstances - we're all human, but no-one lives on Earth if they can help it, gender identity is becoming skewed (look at the prominent androgynous or gender ambiguous characters through the series - Ed, VT, Gren)... you can wake up with no memory of a life that began last century and have to figure out something from there. It's like creating a new, heavily improvisational form of music - bebop. (And, to quote Cyndi Lauper in her interesting conjugation of the verb 'to bop,' 'shebop, hebop a-webop, Ibop, youbop a-theybop, bebop, bebop a-lu shebop.') The same applies for the new crew; Charlie has lost her old world and Marie has run away from hers. Don't worry that I'm just going to copy the _Bebop_ dynamic in _Shebop._ Besides, Charlie is different from Jet in one very important respect; he was hard-boiled, scarred by life, and she is deeply innocent.

- Complaint that the story's moving too fast: Again, on purpose. I want the reader to feel Charlie's rush and dislocation and confusion. The pace will change depending on events.

- About Ed and Ein - I'm going somewhere with it *^.^* But that will come up in its own good time.

Hearty thanks to everyone who has read and reviewed so far; I love feedback.

A note regarding this instalment - 'Bill and Ben' is just me being obscure. I figure if the hosts of the original _Big Shot!_ were called Punch and Judy, the next-gen hosts should also be named after a puppet duo. _Bill and Ben the Flowerpot Men_ was a children's puppet show broadcast on BBC-TV long, long ago; the early 1960s, I believe. It's about two little men made of terracotta flowerpots who speak an incomprehensible language called Flobbalob and spend all their time tending their weed, a tiny potplant (pot plant? lots of people have gleefully found subtext in this) which goes 'WEEEEEEEEEED!' in a high-pitched voice. In an average episode, Bill and Ben walk around the potting-shed and Weed goes 'WEEEEEEEEEED!' a few times. This is perfectly in accordance with the grand tradition of children's puppet shows on British TV; _The Magic Roundabout_ was originally in French and was adapted for the UK by a man who spoke only English. If it makes sense or has any apparent point, it's never gonna make it to cult status. See also the Teletubbies.

The fact that there _is_ a _Big Shot - the Next Generation!_ is self-parody on my part. Ed's disgust at the identity wipe is likewise my comment on the fact that yeah, this has been done, it's been done with _Sandra Bullock_, I know it's not clever or nothin'.

Bandaa, incidentally, is the surname of a present-day African tinpot dictator (I can't remember where he dictates, which shows my grasp of African politics is not all _that_ acute; he may even have died since I read about him). Rainier must have an interesting family background. I am not having a go at Bandai. Just in case it seemed that way.


	3. Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

**III - Even Cowgirls Get the Blues**

'You're not bringing _that,_ are you?' Marie asked incredulously.

'Why not?'

'It's a saxophone.'

'It's _my_ saxophone.' Charlie put the case into the trunk of the car and gave Marie a defiant look.

'I can't believe you play the saxophone. Did your daddy teach you?'

'No, Daddy didn't play any musical instruments. He said he'd always regretted never learning. So I had piano lessons and saxophone. I started out on trumpet but I liked sax better, and Daddy said there's no point wasting your time playing an instrument you don't _like._ It's like kissing someone you don't love.'

'You know, people do that all the time,' Marie said wryly, quirking an eyebrow.

'And there's what's wrong with the world,' Charlie said, slamming down the trunk lid. 'You didn't want to go out into it without a gun, and I don't want to go without my saxophone. It's important to me. Besides, it's my ship. I can bring what I want on board.'

'Which reminds me, do you know how to fly the thing?'

'Pretty much,' said Charlie, sounding a little dubious. 'I mean, one year we took a summer vacation on a rented fishing vessel - restored and made nice for holidaymakers, I mean - and Daddy taught me to pilot that. He said it brought back memories of the _Bebop_ and the basic controls were just the same.'

'Why didn't he just take you on a trip in _Bebop_?' Marie wondered. 'That was his own ship, after all.'

'I don't know I don't think all his memories were happy ones. And like I said, this was a nice ship we went on. _Bebop_'s pretty grungy.'

A police cruiser slid to a stop at the kerb and an officer got out. 'Scuse me, Miss Black?' he called out.

'Yeah?' said Charlie, brushing her hair back from her face as she turned to face him.

'Are you planning to go out?'

'Well, I don't really want to stay in the house alone tonight. I'm going to stay with my girlfriend,' she replied, jerking her thumb towards Marie, who was leaning against the bumper of the car, lighting a cigarette and looking like trouble.

'I'd like to have the address you're going to, please.' Charlie looked hard at him; he seemed both earnest and honest. _But how do I know? Daddy always thought Fad was honest, too._

'Marie?' she said, turning to look over her shoulder. 'What's your mother's address?'

'Apartment 48, Marlowe Towers,' Marie said through smoke. 'If you want to visit us.' She flashed the officer a brilliant smile and Charlie saw his Adam's apple bob.

'Well, okay,' he said. 'You girls take care, eh? I'm sorry for your loss, Miss Black.'

Huh. Guess he thinks Mama died too. 'Thank you,' she said. 'You guys have been a big help.' She watched him walk away, wondering whether she could ever take what someone in uniform said to her at face value again._ Come on you can't suspect everyone a lot of them _are _good guys. Bob. Daddy._ She turned back to the house. 'I just want to go through one more time and see if I've forgotten anything important,' she told Marie.

'Kay,' Marie said. 'Ed'n I'll be in the car.'

'Crack a window if you're going to smoke, okay?' Charlie climbed the front steps and walked into the house she'd grown up in. _I might never get to come back here. Who knows what's going to happen?_ She hugged herself, drawing the oversized teeshirt close around her, as she made a final walking tour of each room. She was pretty sure she'd packed well, and she'd thought to bring food, remembering Jet's stories of how they were always running short. In her parents' room, she lay down on the bed for a minute. _I love you. Please send your love with me. _As she got up, she shivered, and went to the wardrobe to take out a sweater that had belonged to her father too. It hadn't been washed since the last time he wore it; it smelled of him.

'We'll be a father and daughter team, eh?' she said to his memory. 'Daddy help me to be as brave as you'

When she got into the car Marie wrinkled her nose at the sweater. 'Charlie girl, you have pretty shlumpy taste in clothes.'

'Shlumpy, skanky, takes all kinds to make a world,' Charlie said brightly, turning the keys in the ignition. 'Ed, are you buckled up back there?'

'Yepyep,' Ed said, waving a foot at her from the back seat. 'You don't need to check on me like I'm a kid, you know. I'm old enough to be your mother!'

'Let's go, then.'

Bebop gently orbited Mars; Charlie looked down at the dried-blood terrain of the unterraformed portion of the planet as it slipped by beneath them. It had been an awkward takeoff and the ship had complained loudly about having to go somewhere for the first time in a quarter century, but they were finally up. _Let them try to find me here. Any of them._

Marie was taking a bath, saying that since she broke a nail cleaning the bathroom she was damn' well going to enjoy it, and Ed was running searches to get a clearer idea of Rainier Bandaa's present location. Ein was sleeping on the sofa and pedalling his stumpy legs as he dreamed.

_What'm I gonna do?_ Charlie gave herself an assignment; she went down to the launch bay and had a good hard look at Jet's _Hammerhead_. Of the three small ships that once flew out of Bebop, this was the only one left, and it wasn't even built for combat; basically, she realised as she went over it, it was a dinghy with a grappling hook. She thought she could pilot it, although she would want some practice runs before she tried to do anything fancy or fast-paced.

The intercom spoke with Ed's voice. 'Charlie, come see! I got yer Rainier right here!'

Charlie hurried to what she thought of as the living room, where Ed was doing a little victory dance on her hands.

'He'll be at the Pot Black Pool Hall tonight,' she said. 'There's a tournament and he's one of the top contenders. Pool fool drool'

'Chicks rule, guys drool,' Marie said, coming in wrapped in a towel. 'What's the commotion?'

'We have a location for Rainier Bandaa tonight,' Charlie said, hearing a little tremor in her own voice. 'Apparently he's an ace pool player.'

'Coolness,' said Marie. 'So I'm thinking, he doesn't know me, right? I'll flirt with him and get him off somewhere lonely, and you can jump him with gun and handcuffs at the ready.'

'Sounds like a plan.'

'Are you trying to dress badass?' Marie asked, sounding amused.

'I'm trying to dress _practical_,' Charlie said, irritated. 'And unobtrusive.'

'You're wearing a bomber jacket and a fedora, for crying out loud. You look like Indiana Jones.'

'Yes, but I can pull the hat down over my eyes see? And don't mock the fedora, it's Daddy's.'

'Well, how do _I_ look?'

Charlie stood back and looked Marie up and down. 'Easy,' she said truthfully.

'I'm not insulted, 'cause that's what I was going for.'

'I hope Ed and Ein will be all right.'

'Of course they'll be all right. They've lived on this ship alone for years.'

'Yeah, but I can't help feeling like I'm putting them in danger. Leaving them parked here. I mean moored.'

'Well, we had to come down and park to get off the ship,' Marie pointed out, opening the outer door. 'I'm not squishing in that smelly old _Hammerhead _with you.' She skipped down to the jetty and stretched. 'Gotcha gun?'

'Got it.' Charlie patted the weight in her jacket pocket unhappily. She was so afraid that she didn't know how to think about it; she was gliding along on a sort of slick surface of disbelief, the sensible voice of her mind saying, _Of course we are not really about to go to a pool hall and try to capture a dangerous criminal._

The Pot Black was a big, medium classy sort of place, not the kind where cue fights would often break out. They had to pay a cover charge to get in; Marie had to pay for both of them since Charlie could no longer access her bank account.

'You owe me,' she grumbled, tucking her change into her purse.

'I've got some emergency money that Mama kept in the safe at home,' Charlie said, 'but I want to save that till I need it.' She looked around at the room, full of people wanting to play in or watch the championship, chatting and laughing and throwing back drinks while they waited for the first games to begin. There was music, delta blues badly played by a trio jammed into a corner. All the light came from the canopies hanging over the tables; the rafters were high and shadowy, exposed metal beams in a once-fashionable industrial style.

'I guess I'll go and sit at the bar, and you look for him,' she said. 'Talk to me.' She touched the earpiece concealed by her hair.

'M-hm,' said Marie, patting her communicator.

'Oh, and gimme some money.'

'What for? You leech.'

'I have to _buy_ a drink to sit at the bar. It'll look funny otherwise.'

'I bet you'll order lemonade,' Marie said, grudgingly opening her purse.

To prove her wrong, Charlie ordered gin and tonic. She felt conspicuous as all hell sitting there. She couldn't decide whether she should be looking at her drink or around at the room. Marie's voice crackled in her ear.

'He just came in. Oh, shit - he's with a girl. No - wait, she's with his friend. Hey Charlie, are you sure he's straight?'

'He was checking me out,' Charlie mumbled. 'Sure I'm sure.'

'Just suddenly wondered. It'd screw up our plans if he wasn't!'

'Just go and charm him, okay?'

'Gonna have to wait. First game's beginning and he's playing.'

With her heart hammering, Charlie eased herself round on her bar stool and took a look. There were players racking up at every table; a chart showing on a projection screen suggested that winners were going to play winners until it came down to two players at the table in the centre of the room. To her slight relief, Rainier was at a table on the far side of the room; she could see Marie lounging nearby, smoking and watching him sidelong.

_I'm not doing this, I can't be doing this, I'm not a bounty hunter, I'm a BA! I'm going to get killed! _Her shirt and bra were soaking wet under her arms. Mechanically, she took a sip of her drink and watched the games.

It quickly became clear that there were only three real contenders for the prize; they were Rainier, a plump Italian-looking woman in a mumsy flower-print dress, and a lanky young man with close-cropped hair who moved as if he were half asleep. Charlie was impressed in spite of herself at the way they played; she could never have figured out angles like that. Every move was so neat, so precise, exactly as much force as was needed and no more. As the games went on, the conversation died down and you could hear the click of balls more clearly. The three aces cut their way through the lesser players; Charlie could see Luke Sleepwalker (as she had mentally named him) glancing at Mamma Mia and Rainier as he played, sparing the time to size up the opposition he must be pretty sure he would ultimately face. Although she mainly kept her eye on Rainier, her attention was often drawn to the other guy; she was guiltily aware that she found him attractive, even in the midst of her fear. _Your priorities stink, young woman. Get your eyes off his ass! _Wrenching her eyes back to Rainier's table, she could see Marie making her first approach; he had just won a game and was waiting for the next table to become available. She was making a ridiculously suggestive show of re-chalking his cue for him. He seemed to take the attention for granted. He said something that made Marie laugh, throwing back her head and shaking her wavy hair. _Oh, for crying out loud, _Charlie thought, embarrassed by association.

'Freshen that up for you?' the bartender asked, startling her.

'Oh! Oh, um, yes please.' She blushed and hated herself for it. He refilled her glass, whistling softly.

'You waiting for someone?'

'No just watching the game'

'Good. No-one should keep a girl like you waiting.' He slid the drink towards her with a smile and a wink. The blush grew and Charlie hastily turned away to sip her G&T and hold the cool glass against her cheek. To her alarm, she saw that it was down to two tables now, Luke Sleepwalker versus Mamma Mia and Rainier versus an outstandingly nondescript man who appeared to have come straight from the office. Marie was hanging round Rainier like his lucky piece, watching him admiringly. As he stood watching Nobody make a shot, she tried to drape her arm across his shoulders; he shrugged her off crossly and said something to her that made her step back, looking rattled. After a moment's indecision she left his side and threaded her way through the crowd, stopping in a shadowy corner.

'Rude sonofabitch,' she muttered into the communicator.

'What happened?' Charlie asked urgently.

'He saw through me, except he thought one of the other players had asked me to schmooze him to distract him from his game. Told me to piss off, or words to that effect.'

'Ma_rie!_ What are we going to do _now?'_

'I dunno. He won't talk to me again, I don't think. You'll have to try.'

'I can't! He knows me!'

'So there's your in. He's not gonna be suspicious.'

'Marie, he shot my _mother!'_

'You're like a broken record about that. And he fancies you. So go make use of it. Tell him tell him you'll be willing to persuade your mother for some kind of reward. Or she's taught you everything she knows and you could do Feng Shui for him. Then the plan goes as before, get him off somewhere and close the deal. I'll cover you. Got the Glock.'

'I can't. I - I don't know how to talk to boys.'

A pregnant silence.

'How old are you?' Marie asked severely. 'Get your ass over there. And take off your damn' hat. Flip your hair round. Shoulders back, tits out, laugh at his jokes, touch his arms. It's not that hard.'

_I can't. I can't. I've got to. Oh God Daddy, come with me. _She swallowed the last of her drink, slid down from her bar stool and started to walk towards Rainier's table. Far too soon she was standing among the spectators on the side opposite him. She stepped into the light and took off her hat; the movement caught Rainier's eye. She saw his eyebrows go up; he wore those red sunglasses even indoors at night. To their mutual surprise, he missed his shot; she put her hand to her mouth guiltily, feeling stupidly flustered. As Nobody gladly took his turn, Rainier strode swiftly round the table till they were face to face. He leaned close and looked into her eyes.

'Charlie Black, what _is_ a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?'

'I wanted to talk to you,' she said. He was so close she could smell his cologne and it was making her heart hum with terror. Her voice was weirdly level for someone so frightened, she thought. _Daddy's helping me._

'It's not a good time. Bad girl, you put me off my game.' He smiled at her and she was shocked to realise he was flirting. _What kind of sociopath tries to flirt with the daughter of a woman he shot? _Her surprise made her blush again; she looked away.

'Well - well, could I talk to you afterwards?'

'I'd like that.' He glanced over his shoulder; Nobody had just missed the right corner pocket by a centimetre and stepped back, groaning. 'Let me just clean this guy up and play my last game.' He walked away and swiftly disposed of his remaining balls.

_'I'd like that'!? Jesus Christ! _Everyone around her was applauding him; to fit in, she did so too. He looked up, saw her and smiled again.

Applause went up from the other table. Mamma Mia bit her thumb at Luke Sleepwalker and slammed her cue down on the table before stomping away. He blew over the tip of his cue like a gunslinger blowing away smoke and turned to look at Rainier, giving him a crooked, sleepy-eyed smile.

_I hope he wins, _Charlie thought fiercely.

The two finalists and the crowd moved to the central table. Rainier found her again.

'Kiss for luck?' he asked.

'I - I hardly know you,' she stammered.

'I feel I know _you_ very well. After all, I'm hoping we'll become family friends.'

_I've got to go along with it. Forgive me, Mama. _She dotted a kiss against his cheekbone, feeling sick.

'How's my Feng Shui for this match?' he asked, smiling.

'W-well, this venue is pretty bad tiger's eyes coming straight in through the front door from the road it's going to have to be your skill that wins. Not luck.'

'Ah - but I've got this.' He tapped his cheek and walked away.

Charlie looked around, embarrassed, and found Luke Sleepwalker gazing at her with mild curiosity. _Aargh. I wish I had he's-not-really-my-boyfriend telepathy._ She hugged the fedora to her chest and watched the game.

It was a very, very close match; both players moved around the table like tigers, she thought, laziness thinly veiling menace, letting you see the shape through the veil. Except Luke Sleepwalker thought it was funny that they were trying to psyche each other out like this, and Rainier was serious. Charlie could see him getting annoyed by the boy's habitual smirk.

Click; click; thump-thump. The crowd breathed in sharply as Rainier pulled off an outstandingly difficult shot, then pattered with applause. _No, no, no, _Charlie thought, _I don't want him to win!_ She stared at him, willing him to miss a shot. _Miss you creepy bastard miss miss miss miss - hoo-ah! _She bit her lower lip, delighted, and shifted her gaze to Luke Sleepwalker. _Kick his ass, boy. I'll be your best friend if you do! Come on, come on, come onyes! _It began to feel as if she really had some control over the game; abruptly she noticed Rainier watching her as he waited for another turn and realised she might be looking a little too delighted with his rival's success. _Miss one - just one, not badly_, she told Luke Sleepwalker, and to her astonishment he did. She flashed Rainier a bright smile as he lined up his next shot. As the cueball rolled, she realised that it was going to pass far too close to the black. She didn't even need to will it. It ran along the baize with the inevitability of fate, and she saw Rainier realise it too, his face falling, and Luke Sleepwalker's smirk spreading to a grin. The white ball struck the black, a glancing impact, and dribbled off at a useless tangent, while the black promptly and implacably rolled into the side pocket. _Per-lunk, you're sunk, _Charlie thought, raising her hat to cover her face and grinning. Under cover of fedora she sent an air-kiss Luke Sleepwalker's way.

He turned and made a sweeping bow to the audience; Rainier snatched up his jacket with an ill grace and walked towards her, his steps angry and impetuous. He grabbed her upper arm and propelled her away through the crowd; Charlie's heart was beating in her throat, sprung up there by the thought that he knew she had been willing him to lose. From the corner of her eye she saw Marie and prayed for help. She was imagining being dragged out into an alley behind the building, or something equally alarming, but he only took her over to a small round table near the band and pulled out a chair for her. She sat down, nervously. He took the other chair and put his elbows on the table, pushing his hands through his hair. After a moment he looked up and smiled brightly.

'Can't let it get me down, eh?' he said. 'Those tiger's eyes must've got me. What are they, by the way?'

'C-car headlights,' Charlie explained. 'When a building's at the end of a street like this, and all the car headlights shine straight in the front door, that's, well, that's pretty bad Feng Shui.'

'You're your mother's daughter,' he said, and took a dark red enamel cigarette case from his jacket pocket, offering her one. Terrified to give offence in any way, she accepted and put it in her mouth, wondering whether she was doing it right. He leaned over with his lighter; as the first whiff of smoke came into her mouth she had to smother a cough.

'What a neat lighter,' she said, hastily taking the cigarette from her mouth and sucking air. 'Ace of Hearts.'

Rainier glanced at the enamelled Zippo. 'It's my lucky card,' he said, putting it away. 'I'm a romantic.'

_A romantic who shot my mother._

'So what can I do for you, Charlie Girl?' he asked, smoke issuing from his nostrils. She thought it made him look demonic.

'I came to talk to try to sort things out we don't want to be enemies.' She gave him a faltering smile.

'Does your mother know you're out?'

'No I came by myself I'll talk to her for you, um - what should I call you?'

'Rain.'

'Rain.' She smiled again, trying to look like she meant it.

'I'd appreciate that, Charlie. You must know I didn't want to hurt your mother. I have orders, though. Our head man is not a nice person. Me, I'm a nice person. I just do what I have to do, with a minimum of unpleasantness.' He leaned forward, confidentially. 'I only shot her in the arm. Winged her. I wouldn't endanger her life.'

'I'm glad.'

'The police are saying I killed her, which I know is both untrue and unfair.'

'They didn't fool you, eh?'

'Of course not.' He blew a smoke ring. 'Charlie Girl, you're going to be happy with us. For one thing you'll walk into an excellent job, any time you want to. Your mother will never want for anything. New car, new house you can ask for anything and it'll be yours. As long as we have your full co-operation.'

'Of course.' _How the hell am I going to get him somewhere where Marie can ambush him?_

'I'm glad I'm going to get to know you better,' he said.

'I think it'll be interesting. Um what kind of things do you like, besides pool? You're really good at that'

'Roses - you know I love roses.'

'Gardening? Daddy loved his garden.'

'M-hm'

'Gee, we must have heaps in common!' _I hate you I hate you I hate you. Don't you dare like something I like._

'I hope so, Charlie Girl.'

'Do you want to go outside?' she blurted. He raised his eyebrows slightly. 'I'd like to get some fresh air, I mean.'

'Hey, sore loser!' A glass of beer was plunked down on the table; they both looked up the arm of the hand holding it and saw Luke Sleepwalker smiling broadly. 'Here's a drink on me to show there's no hard feelings.'

'If you don't mind, the lady and I are talking.'

'Hi lady.'

'Um - hi.'

'I'm Edge, what're you?'

'Don't waste your time talking to him, Charlie Girl.' Rainier got up, pushing back his chair. 'We were just going out for some air.'

'What about your drink?' Edge put his hands in his pockets and rocked from heel to toe.

'The drink _will_ be _on_ you if you don't step aside,' Rainier said calmly, reaching out as if to pick up the glass.

'He's no fun, is he Charlie Girl?' Edge asked.

'Let's go, Rain,' Charlie said hastily. She got to her feet and tipped her head towards the exit. _Rain. Yuk, yuk, yuk._

'Rain and Charlie sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g?' Edge enquired. Charlie felt a red-hot blush hit her cheeks and suddenly didn't like him any more, even if he had beaten Rainier for her. Rainier just gave a superior smile and offered her his arm; she took it and let him guide her out, not the way she had come in, but to a back doorway that let out into - yep, an alley. A light drizzle was falling; she put on her hat.

'This isn't very pretty,' Rainier said, 'but if we walk round to the back of the building we'll have a wonderful view of the city lights.'

'Really?'

'We're up on a cliff.'

'Ah.' _I am so goddamn' scared of you and now I'm alone with you and we're going out on a cliff. I might just jump off to escape._

'Come on.' He led her by the hand; out of the lee of the buildings the wind was pushing the drizzle around; it moved reluctantly, unhappily. The city spread out before them, lights of all colours.

'I see tiger's eyes moving out there,' Rainier said softly. 'Burning bright, in the forests of the night.'

_How dare you quote poetry at me. _She breathed in deeply to calm herself.

'Good fresh air?' he asked, sounding amused.

'Very good. Nice and cool and damp.' She glanced around the area of waste ground they were standing in. 'You can smell the earth and the grass.'

'What I like is the smell of hot concrete when a sudden shower falls on it - you know, a summer sunshower?'

'Yes, that's good' _You're a freaking lunatic! Have you got no idea of - of - you don't sweet-talk someone whose mother you shot!_

'I know it's a lame old song, but raindrops on roses actually are one of my favourite things.'

'Are you for _real?'_

'Pardon?'

'I just mean - um - this made guy from a syndicate, talking about raindrops on roses and his favourite smells and things?'

'Well, I wouldn't talk this way to just _anyone_, Charlie Girl,' he said, smiling down at her and touching her face. She blinked and forced herself to maintain eye contact. He leaned in and brushed her cheek with his lips; in the same moment she pulled the gun from her pocket and pressed the barrel firmly into his ribs. He froze, and stood still for a long moment, breathing into her ear.

'Charlie Girl, please don't do this. I told you I didn't want to hurt your mother. Hurting me won't make her better.'

'I don't _want_ to hurt you,' she said coldly.

'Then put down the gun be sensible I know you're upset, it's a very hard time for you but I will do everything, everything I can to make it easier for you. I'll take care of you. I lost my father not long ago. I know how it feels.'

'Don't you dare be sympathetic, you - you greasy plate of bacon and eggs.'

'What she said,' said Marie, stepping up behind Rainier and putting her gun to the back of his head. 'This is a citizens' arrest, Mr Bandaa. Do you like to be handcuffed by pretty girls? If you do you're in luck.'

'Oh dear,' Rainier said, sighing. Charlie didn't even see what he did but the next moment she was on her back in the wet grass, he had her gun, and he was holding it to Marie's chest, the barrel nuzzling into her cleavage. Her gun touched his forehead.

'Leave me alone, girls,' he said. 'I don't like unnecessary killing but I do kill when necessary.'

'I could shoot you before you could shoot me,' Marie said bravely.

'But I _would_ shoot you. I'm surprised Charlie is involved with a little tart like you.'

'We're great pals,' Marie said, still not lowering her gun.

'Marie, don't be stupid!' Charlie cried. 'Don't give him a reason to hurt you!'

'Listen to your pal, Marie,' Rainier said, tipping his head Charlie's way.

Slowly and reluctantly, Marie lowered her arm.

'Good girl,' said Rainier. He took it from her hand and put it in his pocket. 'What will I do with you two?' he said with a sigh, half-turning and offering Charlie a hand up. She took it and got to her feet, wishing she could die right now. 'Two little girls playing with guns. I guess you're trying to follow in your father's footsteps, Charlie Girl, and that's a noble ambition, but you should have done some easier jobs first to learn your trade.'

'Please!' she said desperately. 'Don't kill me!' Rushing forward, she threw her arms round his neck; he stepped back a little, surprised, but seemed to accept it as an embrace. 'Please, I'm so confused,' she blubbered, desperately willing Marie to think of something, anything. 'I just want someone to take care of me, someone to tell me what to do! I'm so lost!'

'Oh, Charlie,' he murmured, putting his arms around her and stroking her back; one hand sneaked down and grazed over her bottom, slyly. 'Don't worry. I'll take care of you like you were my own.'

Her head over his shoulder, Charlie gave Marie a _do SOMETHING!_ Look; Marie shrugged helplessly, holding up her empty hands.

'Oh Rain!' Refusing to give herself time to think about it, she put her hands on either side of his face and kissed him on the mouth. She felt him relax just a little and slammed her knee up between his legs. His gun fired at the ground; he fell, taking her with him; she had a moment of sheer terror and then saw Marie's high-heeled shoe come firmly down, pinning the wrist of his gun hand; she wrenched the gun away while Charlie scrambled to get the other from his pocket, as he shuddered and gasped, curled up on himself. Half-leaping, half-stumbling to her feet, she pointed the gun at him and screamed.

'Charlie, calm down!' Marie said.

'We can both shoot you before you can even get your gun out!' Charlie snapped at Rainier. 'And don't tell me to calm down, Marie, I needed to do that!'

'Wow,' said a voice in the dark. 'You girls are _cool.'_

Charlie glanced over her shoulder and found Edge walking up behind them, lowering the pool cue he had been holding ready as a club.

'What are you doing out here?' she demanded.

'I got a feeling something wasn't right with you and the groaning guy there,' he said, pointing the cue at Rainier, 'so I came out to see if you needed me to be a gentleman.'

'Thank you, we've got the situation under control,' Charlie told him.

'And how. These girls kicked your ayass, Rainy!' he said, poking Rainier with the cue and leaving a smudge of blue chalk on his creamy linen suit.

'Don't poke him!' Marie snapped.

Rainier looked up; his face was sweaty and his red sunglasses were crooked. 'You're making an enemy of me, Charlie,' he said.

'No,' she said, getting out the handcuffs from his other pocket, 'I'm making a prisoner of you. Put your hands behind your back or Marie will shoot your head off.' Moving fast, she snapped the cuffs onto his wrists and gave them a tug to make sure they were secure, then stepped back. 'Get up slowly.'

'I mean, bad_ass_,' said Edge, leaning on his cue and grinning. 'You have grass stains on your suit by the way.'

'This is a mistake, Charlie,' Rainier said levelly, ignoring him. 'Just let me go and I'll forget it. For you, I'll do that.'

'No,' Charlie said. 'I want ten million woolongs and I want you to go to jail.'

'Your father lost an arm because he crossed the syndicates. Did you know that's how it happened?'

'Well, actually it was because a friend betrayed him. I know all Daddy's stories. Come on. We're taking you to the police.'

'You girls want a lift?' Edge asked. 'Cause my car's right out front.'

Marie and Charlie exchanged looks; Marie shrugged.

'Sure,' said Charlie. 'It'll make things easier. Thank you, um'

'Edge,' he reminded her. 'Pot Black Pool Champeen Edge.'

'I was hoping you would win,' she said, smiling at him. It was what she wanted to do, damn it.

'Well, thank you space cowgirl!' he said, and loped around behind Rainier to jab at his buttocks with the cue again. 'Move it, mister,' he said. 'You've got two pistols and a big stick trained on you.' They manoeuvred Rainier up the alley and out into the carpark, where Edge unlocked a large blue sportscar, a rich boy's toy.

'_Dew_ get in,' he invited them, hopping into the driver's seat and dumping the cue in the back.

'Don't you have to give back that cue?' Charlie asked, getting into the passenger seat and twisting to keep her gun aimed at Rainier in the back.

'No, for it is mine and mine alone.' He started the engine and backed out carelessly fast; Marie was thrown into Rainier's lap and cursed.

'Nearest police station, please,' Charlie said. Rainier was staring at her sadly. 'Oh, stop it,' she told him. 'Like you ever had a chance with me anyway.'

'I'm a romantic,' he said. 'Romantics believe there's always a chance.'

'Did you do it?' she asked.

'Do what?'

'Wipe my records. My identity.'

'No.'

'You must know who, though.'

'I truly can't tell you.'

'Because of you I have to be a bounty hunter,' she said. 'Because of you I can't have a normal life at all.'

'You don't have to be a bounty hunter at all,' he replied. 'You're extremely obstinate and close-minded. If you'd just accept what I'm offering you, you could be happy.'

'Wow, this is intense,' said Edge happily, taking a corner at reckless speed. Marie was thrown against the car door and cursed louder.

'You're going to jail,' Charlie said, feeling oddly peaceful.

'That won't make you safe, or change the syndicate's mind about your mother.'

'But you will be in jail. That's the important thing. One thing at a time.'

'Poliss!' Edge announced, pulling up at the kerb.

'Get out,' Charlie directed.

Everything went smoothly, incredibly smoothly. She turned him in to the desk sergeant, ignored his attempt to catch her eye as he was led away, slipped the licence into a machine, and entered the account number into which the bounty would be paid - one which Ed had created for her that afternoon, very secret and heavily protected. The bounty went through. She stood on the police station steps, gazing at the little screen showing the new balance and felt tears come into her eyes.

'Oh, don't mush up on me now,' Marie muttered. 'And remember that's half mine.'

'One third,' Charlie protested. 'Remember Ed.'

'Ed didn't take any risks. And ten million doesn't divide by three.'

'You could split it four ways,' said Edge, who was hanging around in the hope that something else interesting would happen.

'With you? I think not,' Marie said.

'He did help us, Marie.'

'He didn't help us to the tune of two point five million woolongs!'

'So just give me one million, and have three million each,' Edge suggested. 'Who's Ed?'

'Look, we appreciate the lift,' Marie said, 'but you're not our partner.'

'It makes the maths work better,' Charlie pointed out.

'Whose side are you on?' Marie demanded.

'Have you ever heard of karma, Marie? What goes around comes around?'

'That's not Feng Shui!'

'It's common sense! Not to mention common decency.'

'Hey. Charlie Black.'

She looked up. A gun fired. Something hit her shoulder incredibly hard and she fell back, distantly conscious of Marie returning fire. Her head struck the wet concrete step and everything went black.

Charlie woke up with a pain in her shoulder and her head, which felt tight and big. There was a light above her and a humming around her. She groaned and opened her eyes slowly; it was the _Bebop_'s living room. Ed was sitting on the floor rattling away at the Tomato. Ein was lying across her legs protectively, an inert warm weight. Marie was sitting across from her in the armchair, buffing her nails.

'What happened?' Charlie asked hoarsely.

'Someone shot you,' Marie replied, not looking up from her nails, 'and I shot him back. He got into a big car and zoomed off, _we_ got _you_ into Edge's car and took you to a doctor. Then we brought you back here. You're all right. You just need to rest for a couple of days and let your shoulder heal. It's a flesh wound. Guy was a crappy shot.'

'Wh-where's Edge now?'

'Toilet,' Marie said succinctly.

'How long have I been out?'

'Couple of hours. Well, you woke up at the doctor's and raved about your mother and father and rain on concrete and he gave you a shot, hence the sleeping for a couple of hours. He was a weird old guy. I called Ed from Edge's car to tell her what had happened and she gave me his address.' Marie subjected her pinky fingernail to careful examination and smoothed off its edge. 'The doctor had an interesting reaction to Edge, and I think you're gonna have it too when you see him in clear light.'

'Hnh?' Charlie sat up, protecting her injured shoulder with her other hand.

'Here.' Marie produced a Polaroid and put it in her hand. Charlie looked at it muzzily; it was one of Jet's photos, captioned simply 'Spike.' It showed a face she already knew, under a preposterous white man's Afro. He was smiling around a cigarette.

'Yeah Spike Spiegel. So?'

'Have another look at Edge when he comes back,' Marie said. 'Here he is. Edge, walk round and let Charlie look at you.'

'Why?' asked Edge, wiping his wet hands on the seat of his jeans. He strode out in front of Charlie and struck a pose.

'Oh my God,' said Charlie.

'Quite,' said Marie. 'Ed hasn't looked up from the Tomato since we got in, but I'm betting when she does we'll get a reaction.'

'What?' said Edge. 'Am I, like, really hot? Are you both going to jump me together? Be gentle with me.'

'Edge, look at this photo,' Charlie said, holding it out.

'Who's the guy?' he asked. 'Wow, that's a haircut time forgot.'

'That's my father's partner, Spike.'

'Was your dad gay?'

'Business partner,' Charlie said. 'We we think you look like him. An awful lot like him.'

Edge's cheerful expression stilled and seemed to congeal. He looked at the picture for another long moment and then flipped it at Charlie.

'Nah,' he said. 'You get these chance resemblances all the time. Just some random guy.'

'I - I'm sorry,' Charlie said. 'Of course, it's rude to imply that you could be related. I don't know anything about your parents.'

'Neither do I, but that doesn't prove anything,' he said. 'I don't know what you guys are playing at but mocking up a photo is pretty classless. It's CG, isn't it? That kid plugged into the wall did it.' He jerked his thumb at Ed.

'No,' Marie said gently. 'This photo is at least twenty-five years old.'

'I'm twenty-six.'

'So?'

'Listen,' he said, suddenly sounding angry, 'you want to hear the story of my life? Here we go. Once upon a time there was a woman who got pregnant and didn't want to have a baby. For whatever reason, possibly a very good reason, but we don't know. So she went for a termination. But the doctor was crooked and running a black-market fertility clinic on the side. Instead of destroying the foetus he extracted it safely and put it in cryogenic storage until someone wanted it. When an order came in for a little boy he'd either implant it in the uterus of the lucky lady with the money, or bring it to term in an artificial womb so she wouldn't have to lose her figure. A rich barren couple wanted a son and heir. They bought me and brought me up. They got pretty fed up with me in the end. I was weird and got into trouble at school and never really seemed grateful enough for being adopted. I took my car and I left. I make a living playing pool. I see a lot of hustlers and grifters every day and this isn't a particularly good trick.'

'Oh, use your brain,' Marie said, stretching in her seat. 'What would we trick you for? Like you're such a dream mark.'

'Truly, Edge, this picture is real,' Charlie said earnestly. 'We have others. Maybe this _is_ your father.'

'Yeah? You gonna introduce us?'

'Well well, we can't. I'm sorry he died in 2071.'

'Okay,' said Edge. 'I guess you're not trying to dupe me after all, because where the hell would this be going.' He leaned against the back of the couch. 'Sorry. I'm touchy about this stuff. I don't know where I came from.'

'Hey, I don't know who my dad is either,' said Marie cheerfully. 'This is the Ship of People Who Have Issues With Their Fathers.'

'I don't have issues with my father,' Charlie said indignantly.

'Yes you do. A girl's relationship with her father determines how she'll relate to men when she grows up, right? Well, he was so perfect, according to you, that there's no way any other guy is going to be able to live up to the standard he set. Thus you are doomed to go through life alone, 'cause your heart belongs to Daddy.'

'That is simply not true,' Charlie snapped back.

'It's true,' Marie told Edge. 'Want to join up with us? We're a brand-new bounty-hunting team. Charlie's the muscle of the outfit.'

'And Ed's the brains. Marie's just the boobs,' Charlie said, nastily, which was how she felt.

'Meow,' said Marie, with a hint of respect in her voice.

'And I would do what? Why do you want me to come on board now? Because you think I'm related to this Spike person? What does that mean?'

'Well it seems like fate,' Charlie said. 'Because then all of us would be either an original _Bebop_ crew member or the child of one. Marie's mother flew with Spike and Jet too. And Ed and Ein were here in those days.'

'Bullshit,' he said, without any particular rancour. 'Ed's what, fourteen?'

'Thirty-eight, I think,' Ed said, without looking up from her online exploration.

'Uh, be that as it may,' he said, after a moment, 'you're pursuing a very sentimental notion on practically no evidence. Like I said, this could be a chance resemblance. Lots of guys have brown hair and brown eyes.'

'You have the same nose, same mouth, same shaped face,' Marie pointed out. 'And I bet if you let your hair grow out it'd do that too.'

'God forbid,' Edge muttered. 'So who's my mother supposed to be in your fantasy world?'

'Dunno,' said Marie, shrugging.

'Probably' said Charlie, and trailed off.

'Probably who?'

'Well, you know. Julia.'

'Oh Julia' Marie frowned. 'I guess since he was frozen for a while that could work a few years could've gone by in between'

'Who's Julia?'

'The only woman we know about that Spike loved,' Charlie said.

'Got pictures of her too?'

'No no pictures.'

'And I bet she's dead, too, right?'

'Um yes'

'Why are you even bothering to tell me these things, ladies?' He smiled at them wearily. 'It seems pretty pointless.'

'Because because we think it might be true,' Charlie said weakly.

'If Julia found out she was pregnant after Spike left'

'She might not have wanted to have his baby without him around'

'So'

'Yeah.'

'That's pretty sad.'

'Poor Julia.'

'Poor me!' Edge said. 'My head's going round and round. Guys, this is like coming in after twenty-five years of a soap opera and trying to work out who's whose ex-wife.'

'What sort of name is Edge anyway?' Marie said abruptly, as though she'd been wanting to ask for some time.

'It is short,' he replied with some dignity, 'for Edgeworth Morgan McKenna Featherstonehaugh.'

'That's pronounced Fanshaw,' Marie said dryly.

'I wanted you to know how to spell it. Anyway, could you stand being called Edgeworth Morgan McKenna Ffffffffffanshaw? So I call myself Edge.'

'Edge, Spike, that speaks to me of a similar mentality,' Marie said. 'You guys pick your nicknames the same way.'

'That's stupid,' Edge pointed out. Abruptly, he walked away, and equally abruptly turned on his heel and came back. He sat down on the sofa next to Charlie, dislodging Ein, who grumbled and toddled away. 'So what was my dad like? Didja know him?'

'No he died before I was born, but Daddy knew him and told me about him.' Charlie blinked. 'Wait a minute! Why did someone shoot me!?'

'For turning in Rainier, natch.' Marie said, shrugging.

'This is not a good night,' Edge said, leaning back wearily.

'Of course it is,' Charlie said, getting up with a soft grunt of discomfort. 'You won a contest. And got to have an adventure. I want milk. Who else wants milk?' She made her way to the kitchen and opened the fridge. 'There is no milk,' she said.

'I'm going to bed,' Edge said.

'Where are you going to bed?' Marie asked.

'Where I can find a bed. Or a pile of something soft and not stinky to lie down on.'

'There's no milk,' Charlie said forlornly, coming out of the kitchen. 'The milk is all gone,' she elaborated.

'Well, we can buy some milk with our ten million woolongs,' Edge pointed out.

'So are you deciding to stay or what?' Marie demanded.

'I don't like to be pressured for decisions,' he replied.

'Ugh. You're annoying. I'm going to watch TV.' She switched it on and sat back, glowering.

'They have a late-night edition of _Big Shot!_?' Charlie said wonderingly.

'Roundup of the day's events,' Edge suggested. 'What is this show?'

'Bounty hunters watch it,' said Marie. 'Shh!'

'Into every life a little Rainier must fall, or something,' Bill cheerfully yipped. 'One lucky bounty hunter collected on Rainier Bandaa this evening, but I bet they'll be peeved to learn that he's been released already! Apparently a mishandling of procedure by the ISSP meant they just couldn't hold onto him. Out on a technicality - still, I bet the bounty's in the bank by now!'

'Oh, _no_,' said Charlie, sitting down on the floor.

'After all that effort!' Marie exploded. She pulled off her right shoe and threw it at the set.

'What's the big? You've got the money,' Edge said, lying back on the couch and stretching out. 'Hey, I could sleep here!'

'Now he'll come after Mama again,' Charlie quavered.

'Don't think so,' Ed said.

'Are you listening to our conversation or what?' Marie enquired.

'Your mother's been taken into a witness protection programme, just like the doctor said,' Ed announced. 'So she oughtta be fine.'

'Why did no-one _tell_ me!?'

'Prob'ly because they couldn't find you - which was what you wanted.'

'But - but I mean, how am I ever going to let Mama know I'm okay?'

'Well, sooner or later we'll probably track her down. Finding people is what we do.' Ed took off her goggles and turned to blink at them. Their rubber seals had left red rings around her eyes. 'Isn't there any milk at all? I want cereal.'

'Someone's got mail,' Edge said, pointing to an illuminated icon at the bottom of the TV screen.

'Let me see?' Charlie said. A text message appeared.

_Charlie Girl,_

_I forgive you for tonight and hope you'll learn from the experience. I will still do my best to see that your mother is well treated. I have to respect you for your courage. I will remember that kiss._

_Rain_

'I really hate that guy,' she said, shaking her head.

'Does he know about the witness protection thingy?' Edge asked.

'I don't know. I don't want to ask him.'

'The way he talks, it sounds like _his_ people have your mother,' Marie said thoughtfully.

'Don't even suggest that, Marie.' Charlie wiped her hands over her face and pushed back her hair. 'It's not like Mama can just be pushed around. She's smart and tough. Did I ever tell you the story of how she and Daddy met? Of how she rescued him from gangsters, found them an escape route? She's not a passive person.'

'So you're not worried?' Edge asked.

'As long as I don't know what's going on, of course I'm worried. I just - I'm just too tired and sore to think about it sensibly.'

Marie was re-reading the mail pensively, her chin in her hand. 'Are you and Rainier going to have one of those love-hate romance things?' she asked. 'I would like to be warned.'

'God, I hope not. Apart from being stereotypical, like Ed hates, I think I'd end up dead before my time.' Charlie shuddered. 'I don't understand him. Nothing works the way it should.'

'I found some little UHT thingies of coffee creamer,' Ed called from the kitchen. 'I think I swiped them somewhere. There might be enough for cereal.'

'When did life turn into chaos?' Charlie asked rhetorically.

'Feels like home to me,' Edge said, curled up with his sweater under his head, and went to sleep.

**Author's Note: **Well, there's another guy in the story now, which oughtta please those who want men and enrage those who don't. Rainier's gonna be a fixture, the big creep. As for the suggestion of yuri... it's not that I'm opposed to doing this type of story, but I don't see that kind of vibe between Marie and Charlie. Maybe I can introduce another character with whom that's a possibility. I have no idea if this chapter is any good. I don't feel at all confident writing in the _Bebop_verse; if this were an _Escaflowne_ story it'd be different. I do tend to think of them as sister series somehow. (Odd mental picture of Folken and Jet comparing the design features of their cyber arms.)

Oh, and the formatting thing should be fixed. '' is something that pops up from time to time because I forget to check for it - I write these stories in MS Word and then copy and paste them into HTML pages (I know ff.net now lets you upload Word .doc files, but it doesn't seem to preserve italics in the text, which I love to use), and for some reason the Word ' - ' character comes out as '' in Claris Homepage 3.0, my HTML editor. When I've pasted the text I have to do a Find/Change search for all the endashes. Word _is_ capable of saving documents as HTML files, but they come out so freakin' _huge_ that I can't be bothered to do it that way. The occasional '' slipping through the net is just the price I have to pay.


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